Concert Review: Bruce Springsteen @ Bridgestone Arena

Photos courtesy of Mark Maxwell

Having just witnessed
my very first Bruce Springsteen concert, I can now officially echo Jon Landau’s
prophetic endorsement that “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce
Springsteen.” Although that statement was originally made in a pre-Born to Run 1974, it holds as true today
as it ever did then. After a 2 encore, 3 hours plus mixture of majestic
musicality and sweaty showmanship, there is no question that Bruce Springsteen and
the E Street Band is still the bar by which all other bands are measured. With
no signs of slowing down any time soon, Springsteen seems content to be continually
raising that bar with each show.

The
follow-up sentence to that Landau quote proved equally fitting for me tonight
as well: “he made me feel like I was hearing music for the first time.” While
that could easily be shrugged off as euphoric post-show hyperbole, I can
honestly say that there was a specific point in the show tonight where the
music that was being created on stage was something I had never experienced
before. During “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” honorary E Streeter Tom Morello
(formerly of Rage Against the Machine) played an outlandishly otherworldly
guitar solo – if you can call it that – that transcended the song to somewhere
I’d never been before. Originally a Steinbeck-inspired, acoustic-led folk song,
Springsteen has morphed “The Ghost of Tom Joad” in recent years to be an aural
onslaught of instrumentation that matches the anger and indignance of the
lyrics. Morello seemed to pull out every technique and trick in his inventive
guitarsenal, effortlessly switching between bouts of manic melodiousness and
surrealistic sounds. At one point, he even unplugged the guitar and furiously tapped
the cable in the palm of his hand as he rocked out a rhythm on his beloved
whammy pedal. But as jaw-dropping as it actually was, the thing that made the
moment so special was how Morello’s boundless guitarwork fit in with what
everybody else was doing. As Springsteen looked on, strumming away on his own
guitar, the rest of the E Street Band provided the flawless atmospherics to
support this feat of fleet-fingered fancy. That’s what makes Springsteen’s
music and his shows so singularly special. It’s the unified combination of the
band, the songs, the crowd, and, of course, the Boss.

Springsteen
opened the show with “High Hopes,” the title track of his most recent covers
and outtakes album. As the militaristic marching beat set the groove, the
Bridgestone Arena crowd was immediately loud, engaged, and insatiable. Every
song, new or old, seemed to be met with the same level of enthusiasm and
top-of-your-voice singalongs. After a mix of Darkness on the Edge of Town favorite “Badlands,” Born in the U.S.A.’s “No Surrender,” and
Wrecking Ball’s “Death to My
Hometown,” Springsteen greeted the enthusiastic attendees to deafening
approval. Continuing on with the crowd interaction, Springsteen took off his
guitar and let the arena take the first verse of “Hungry Heart” as he wove his
way through the fans on the floor. After resuming vocal duty midway through the
crowd, Springsteen took the opportunity of Jake Clemons’ saxophone solo to
crowd surf back to the stage, collecting signs of song requests along the way.
As Bruce got back to the front of the stage, Clemons played the final few bars
of his sax solo with one hand as he coolly pulled Bruce back on stage with the
other. At this point, the crowd was at fever pitch and we were barely five
songs in.

After a
rousing “Spirit in the Night” from his 1973 debut album, Springsteen launched
into his infamous “Stump the E Street Band” routine where he chooses a couple
of songs based solely on sign requests. After some short instructions – “Key of
D, band” – he did a convincing Elvis on “Burning Love” and then brought a young
fan on stage to help sing on a loose cover of The Rolling Stones’
“Satisfaction.” Moving into a mini “Electric Nebraska” section, Springsteen and company amped up “Atlantic City”
and “Johnny 99,” with Morella and the E Street horn section contributing
stellar solos to the latter. “Johnny 99,” one of my absolute favorite
Springsteen numbers, was played with the fervor and tenacity of a set closer. However,
at this point, we were only 10 songs in.

Deciding to
finally give the frenzied crowd a breather, Springsteen’s moving “American Skin
(41 Shots)” was next. Originally written in 1999 after the controversial police
shooting of Amadou Diallo and resurrected in 2012 in light of the heartbreaking
Trayvon Martin case, “American Skin (41 Shots)” is equal parts somber and
stirring, a tricky line that Springsteen is a master at traversing. After
picking things back up with a raucous “The Promised Land,” E Street guitarist
Nils Lofgren turned in an incendiary guitar performance on crowd favorite
“Because the Night.” Although Lofgren and Morello have decidedly different
guitar styles, their joint efforts compliment each other in a unique fashion
that provides for some fun, eclectic moments. After another moment of deceptive
dreaminess courtesy of “I’m on Fire,” Born
in the U.S.A.’s “Downbound Train” and Wrecking
Ball’s “Shackled and Drawn” mirrored the percussive thump of the show
opener. For “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day,” Bruce grabbed another set of young fans
to help with background vocals, reminding us all of large reach that Bruce and
his music has over fans of all ages and generations.

The first
set closed mightily with Springsteen and Morello trading verses on “The Ghost
of Tom Joad,” the palpable uplifting swell of “The Rising,” and the crowd
losing their minds for “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Tagging the last song with a
few lines of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” Springsteen left the crowd
(if only for a moment) with a redemptive hope that was seen in the smiles and
heard in the shouts. Surprisingly a few people in our section actually left at
this point, unfortunately missing out on the fact that Springsteen encores are
not to be missed.

For his
first encore, Springsteen came back out to give an amazing tribute to fellow
New Jersey musician Walter Cichon (and everyone else) who died in the Vietnam
War and performed “The Wall” to thunderous approval. Next, he reached back to
1980’s The River for “Point Blank,” a
surprising song that he hasn’t played on this current tour thus far. However,
it was the closing foursome of songs that threatened to break Bridgestone in
half. Starting with an anthemic “Born in the U.S.A,” the house lights would
occasionally turn all the way so that everyone could see (and participate in)
the party that was taking place on the arena floor. It was fist-in-the-air
singing and like-nobody’s-looking dancing the entire time throughout “Born to
Run” and “Dancing in the Dark” as well. However, the crescendo hit maximum
intensity during “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” as the arena screens showed shot
after shot of deceased E Street members Danny Federici and Clarence “Big Man”
Clemons. As the song essentially tells of the beginnings of the E Street Band,
Springsteen paused after hitting the lyric “When the change was made uptown and
the Big Man joined the band” and the crowd erupted in tribute. Even after
Springsteen closed out with "Shout" and his customary “You’ve just seen the heart-stopping,
pants-dropping, house-rocking…” carnival barking, the crowd refused to call it
a night. Springsteen came out for a second encore and played his laid-back,
acoustic version of “Thunder Road” all by himself. As the crowd fought between
trying to listen and singing every single word as loud as they could, there was
no question that we had all been a part of something magical together; something
that is not regularly experienced and not easily forgotten.
Setlist:High HopesBadlandsNo SurrenderDeath to My HometownHungry HeartSpirit in the NightBurning Love Satisfaction Atlantic City (electric version) Johnny 99 (electric version) American Skin (41 Shots) The Promised Land Because the Night I'm on Fire Downbound Train Shackled and Drawn Waitin' on a Sunny Day The Ghost of Tom Joad The Rising Land of Hope and Dreams/People Get Ready Encore #1:The Wall Point Blank Born in the U.S.A.Born to Run Dancing in the Dark Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out/ShoutEncore 2:Thunder Road (acoustic version)

Contributors

Click here to receive notifications of new posts via Twitter from @will_hodge or you can also feel free to email me at will@mysocalledsoundtrack.com with any questions, concerns or requests.

Welcome to My So-Called Soundtrack

Welcome to My So-Called Soundtrack, an amatuer music blog that I started back in 2010 before I became a professional music journalist. While I write for a variety of different outlets now, this is where I got my start and where I sporadically drop-in reviews and articles that may not find a home in other outlets. So while the last few years have seen My So-Called Soundtrack running lean on regularly-occuring original content, you can find my writings at these other fine publications: